As a freshman, full of youthful fire and idealism, I joined the Humanitarian Challenges Focus program, traditionally an activist boot camp. Aside from the seminars, dinners and service-learning placements, we were also exposed to many of the student groups on campus that engage in humanitarian work, aid and activism.
As a guy, I was naturally drawn to the more macho crises, like the death penalty, civil war or genocide. I was blessed with an opportunity to help off campus at Durham's Center for Death Penalty Litigation, and learned that there was the valuable work to be done saving people's lives. However, I was also exposed to the activism related to the genocide in Darfur.
In late 2004, there were still Westerners unaware of the ongoing genocide. While both houses of Congress had unanimously passed a resolution declaring the conflict a state-sponsored genocide in June of that year, and President George W. Bush called it a genocide that September, very little had been done. Most of the students working on the issue on campus thought the best way to rectify this was by promoting wider awareness.
Three years later, everyone is aware. Congress and the president have restated their declaration of genocide. Even the media has given the issue some coverage. I honestly think that any American who still hasn't heard that there's a genocide going on in Sudan is willfully avoiding the information. And yet, people keep dying. This time, when the West stands up and loudly proclaims "If only we'd known!" it will be an even more transparent lie than usual.
Concerned Americans are not going to end the genocide in Darfur. Divestment or unilateral economic sanctions will just push Sudan further into China's sphere of influence; the United States does not have the resources-or, at this point, the political capital-available for unilateral military action; and any attempt at a multilateral solution will be blocked by China.
Darfur's problem is not a dearth of awareness so much as a dearth of solutions. Thinking that flyering the campus will do anything to end genocide in Darfur is a bit like thinking that list-spamming will yield a proof of the Riemann hypothesis. In a world where China is on the prowl for natural resources, the same holds for most state-sponsored abuses of human rights.
I hate to sound defeatist. To be honest, I'm sympathetic to the Darfur activists: they're doing the best they can under the circumstances, and though they may not come any closer to ending the genocide, or even to lighting a fire in the belly of the American public, groups like the Save Darfur Coalition have done incredible work raising funds for refugees in neighboring countries like Chad.
The faith in awareness activism is widespread, though, and carries over to other causes where its benefits are even more dubious. Though "An Inconvenient Truth" may have raised awareness of global warming, I suspect the newfound will to make sacrifices to address it has more to do with the popular misconception that Hurricane Katrina was caused by climate change.
Some things must be experienced to be believed. I never believed that sexism was prevalent in our society until I got a job. After all, in school, women outnumber and outperform men, so it's easy to dismiss someone complaining about gender bias as a quaint anachronism. It wasn't until I ventured into the workforce that I realized that misogyny hadn't gone the way of the LP.
And even when activists succeed in making people "aware," we can be a long way from a solution. The problem with environmentalism is that, once you have picked the low-hanging fruit, continued progress is extremely costly, and the benefits of any particular policy are very hard to predict with any accuracy. Hence, although most people would rather not bake the Earth, it's hard for them to embrace the tough measures that environmentalists claim will prevent us from doing so. In the short term, it's easier to divest from all sea-front real estate in Florida.
But that doesn't prevent some people from thinking that, if only people knew more about their cause, the problem would go away. This is the only reason I can think of for the reason that every semester, in the pages of this newspaper, several people call for some curriculum reform to force everyone to study their pet causes.
Two classes on the environment will not convince people to join the Sierra Club. Hoping that two courses in cross-cultural inquiry will end racial tensions in America-or on this campus-is a bit like thinking slavery could have been ended with an effective flyering campaign.
Some problems have no easy solutions. Awareness activists should stop pretending otherwise.
David Rademeyer is a Trinity senior. This is his final column of the semester.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.